The Song Dog Read Free

Division in Natal only twenty-three days ago, I nonetheless hereby make application for an immediate further transfer. Never, in all my born days in the South African Police, have I met such baboons as you and your little band of arse-creeping half-wits—and as for Trekkersburg itself, God knows what our forefathersthought they were doing, fighting the bloody English for it! Three weeks in Trekkersburg should become, in my opinion, the new sentence for aggravated child molestation
.
    So far, so good—even if it did have a few rough edges, he thought, and looked forward to seeing the expression on Du Plessis’ face.
    Bastard!
    Inadvertently, Kramer had just caught a glimpse in his mind’s eye of the Colonel standing where he had first seen him at five thirty that morning: scratching his bum over by the big window in his office at divisional headquarters.
    “Ja, Colonel?” Kramer had said, walking in without knocking. “What’s the problem—apart from the fact some stupid bugger’s just woken my landlady to tell her you wanted me down here, chop-chop …?”
    Du Plessis turned, his shriveled neck protruding like a turtle’s from the oversize collar of his uniform tunic. “Ah, Lieutenant!” he smarmed. “So good of you to be so quick! Poor Captain Bronkhorst has been worrying that you would find it difficult to adjust to our little ways, but your promptness leaves me no cause for complaint—none whatsoever. Promptitude is what I like to see in an officer! That, and loyalty, too, of course. Loyalty and promptitude.”
    “Ja, ja, but why did the Colonel send for me?” asked Kramer, already growing edgy in the buffoon’s presence. By the sound of it, Du Plessis wasn’t so much in need of a homicide detective as of a devoted spaniel with a bloody alarm clock.
    “Terrible tidings!” said Du Plessis, suddenly very grave, and left the window to move behind his huge desk. “Terrible, terrible tidings,” he repeated, slowly lowering himself into his seat in what Kramer had come to think of as the hemorrhoid crouch. “From afar,” Du Plessis added, wincing as his weight settled.
    “How far?” asked Kramer.
    Du Plessis opened out the brown docket on his blotter. “From Jafini, way up in Northern Zululand,” he said. “There’s been a double murder some fifteen miles farther east at a place called Fynn’s Creek. Two adult persons, both white, one male and one female; explosive device suspected, motive as yet unknown.”
    “Uh-huh … When?”
    “Just after midnight. Or twelve-eighteen this morning to be exact, because that’s when the station commander at Jafini heard a loud detonation and went out to investigate. It took him until four-ten to pinpoint the scene of the explosion, and by then he—”
    “Ja, but you still haven’t told me what’s so terrible about it. Colonel,” Kramer interrupted, impatient with detail at this stage. “Were the deceased known personally to you or something?”
    “Astute, very astute,” murmured Du Plessis, with a smile as fleeting as a nun’s wicked thoughts. “Yes—and no, I think is the answer to that. The male personage butchered in this despicable, cowardly fashion was none other than Maaties Kritzinger …”
    Kramer shrugged. “And so?” he said, aware that a very much stronger reaction was being expected of him, but at a loss to know why.
    “Detective Sergeant Martinus Kritzinger?” prompted Du Plessis. “Head of the CID at Jafini? Who once played fullback for your own home province, the Free State?”
    “Oh, a cop—now I get it,” said Kramer. “Never heard of the bugger. Who was his lady friend?”
    Du Plessis bristled. “A fellow officer dies in the line of duty and that’s all you can say?”
    “At present, ja,” confirmed Kramer. “There’s plenty of cops I wouldn’t leave a lame cat alone with, so I tend not to prejudge.”
    “
Prejudge
?” echoed Du Plessis, and swallowed hard before giving an unhappy chuckle. “Ja, Captain